PRESIDENT’S REPORT
TO THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
AUGUST 26, 2004

I wish to present my report for the year 2003-04 highlighting the Council’s activities which covered various facets of life affecting refugee communities.

* Meetings with senior officials of the New Zealand Immigration Service on a regular basis gave us the chance to address the barriers faced by refugees in a coordinated manner.

* Operational Instructions at the border, especially at the airport, dealing with asylum seekers needed more discussions and resulted in a revised version of the Operational Instructions. My thanks to Deborah Manning for her input which played a major role in the final manual which is in operation presently.

* I must thank both the former Minister of Immigration Hon Lianne Dalziel and Managing Director of Immigration Service Andrew Lockhart for their assistance in organising the above meetings.

* Brendan Quirk from NZIS is now responsible for these meetings. There are new officials involved in the refugee sections of the NZIS and we have had the opportunity to meet them at our last meeting held in the month of July this year.

* The Refugee Council is still concerned with the ongoing detention of asylum applicants and this was raised with the UN High Commissioner of Refugees, Mr. Ruud Lubbers, when I was given the opportunity to meet him on behalf of the Council in April this year. I also expressed concern regarding the procedures involved in assessing status of refugee applicants and the ongoing detention and treatment of Zaoui - the case which has still to be decided.

* On behalf of the Council, I wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon Prime Minister Helen Clark and the present Minister of Immigration Hon Swain, conveying to both of them our concerns regarding the ongoing detention of Zaoui and the treatment given to him despite the fact that he has been granted refugee status.

* I attended the Tripartite conference and raised issues on medical screening of refugees and was given the opportunity to chair a workshop session on the above topic.

* I must also thank Neville Kay, one of our executives, who attended the NGO day of the above meeting.

* My sincere gratitude to Colin Henry - our energetic Co-ordinator - who left us in October last year. He successfully facilitated the smooth running of our weekly Access Radio programme ‘New Roots’.

* Colin's position was taken over by Bosire Nyamori whose good work also needs commendation.

* The arrival of Vanessa Dinter as an intern from Germany to work for the Council was a huge boost to us. She is now currently the co-ordinator since June this year as Bosire left us.

* Vanessa is involved in two projects and her reports will be very productive.

* Funding poses problems especially as we are functioning not as service providers and we have to come up with new initiatives to overcome this barrier.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the members of the Executive Committee. My special thanks to Deborah Manning and David Ryken who have been of invaluable assistance to me.

Dr N Rasalingam
President